It's a common practice to give the user a tracking number for their shipments. In addition to being a nice experience for the customer, it's also good for store owners because you'll have less follow-up e-mails asking where their package is. A customer can click on a link in their confirmation e-mails and see exactly where it is.
If you have an order awaiting fulfillment in your store you don't need to do anything. If you don't have an order in your store, it's best to create a test order using the Cheque Payment gateway so you don't have to spend any money.
You'll also need the WooCommerce Shipment Tracking plugin, available at WooThemes.com, installed and activated on your site.
To track your shipments with Shipment Tracking, take a look at the following steps:
- From the WordPress admin, go to WooCommerce | Orders.
- Navigate to an order that needs fulfillment and click on it to go to the Order Detail page.
- On the Order Detail page, you'll see a Shipment Tracking box.
- Enter data in Provider, Tracking number, and the Date shipped boxes. The more information you put in here, the more useful it will be for your customer:
- Click on Save Order. This will save the order and refresh the page.
- Now change Order status to Completed:
- Click on Save Order. This will save the order and send out the order completed e-mail.
- The customer will see when their order was sent out with a link to get updates:
The Shipment Tracking extension works with dozens of providers all around the world and is the best solution. If you use USPS, there's a complimentary plugin that makes the whole process easier. The Stamps.com API extension available at WooThemes.com will allow you to get the tracking number from the WooCommerce order screen and is a huge time-saver.